ACHIEVEMENTS
Bronze (4/4)
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Register and attend
Our whole team officially registered for attendance at the Giant Jamboree on the 31/08/2016. We’re all looking forward to showcasing our project in Boston! -
Deliverables
Safety forms were submitted throughout the season. Team wiki including attribution page completed for the October 19th Wiki Freeze. BioBricks documented on our part list (link to parts page) where added to the iGEM registry. DNA samples of these parts were submitted before the 21st October. The judging form was submitted on the 12 October. We have prepared a poster and a 20 minute student presentation of our project work this summer for the Giant Jamboree. -
Attribution
This achieved by making an attribution page on the wiki defining each students main roles within the team. As well as our instructors and sponsors (link to attributions here) -
Part / Contribution
Submitted parts vital to our project can be found here BBa_K1957005 All parts are available for viewing on the iGEM Parts Registry.
Silver (3/3)
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Validated Part / Validated Contribution
Evidence of our hydrogenase subunit parts working as expected can be seen here (link to golden gate page). This is our gene cluster in one vector, expressed as evidenced by our expression trials and actively producing hydrogen more effectively than the wild type >>>>>(link)<<<<<< -
Collaboration
Our team has been involved with collaborative efforts with various other iGEM teams in the UK. With University College Cork, we worked together to produce a guide video on how to run a children’s science engagement activity using bacteria >>>>>(link).<<<<<<
We provided Imperial university with growth data for Shewanella under varying conditions to be used in their co-culture project >>>(link)<<<.
In exchange for the use of their Atomic force microscope for imaging Shewanella adhesion levels, we modelled some proteins structures for them vital to their project >>>(link)<<.
We also took part in the UK iGEM meet up hosted by Westminster University. Where we and many other teams presented our experiences so far and discussed each other’s projects >>(link)<<<. -
Human Practices
Our team has been involved in a number of public outreach activities. As mentioned previously, we hosted a children’s summer school session in our labs. Here we introduced the children to bacteria in a fun and engaging way by allowing them to ‘paint’ using E. coli cultures transformed with chromatic proteins >>> (link). <<<<
We had the opportunity to present some of the unique opportunities available by partaking in the iGEM project at the UEA open day. Showcasing our VR experience to the public for the first time and explaining how we are utilising bacteria to tackle issues with renewable energy >>>> (link). <<<<
We will soon have the opportunity to present our final project results to the public at the Norwich Science Festival where we will have a stall dedicated to our iGEM project featuring an improved version of our VR experience >>>(link).<<<
Gold (2/2)
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Integrated Human Practices
Our experience working with the kids at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts summer school and seeing their drawn impression of bacteria inspired us to produce our comic >>>(link).<<<
The aim here was to communicate to the general public about the uses of bacteria in conjunction with synthetic biology. When describing the science behind our project in more detail at Hethel innovation we encountered difficulty passing on information concisely and with clarity. We started discussing ideas to address this communication barrier and developed the idea of using Virtual Reality (VR) as a communication tool. This VR model would place the viewer within the periplasm of our cell, and literally show them what we have done at the molecular level >>>(link).<<<
From our test runs at the Open Day and Norwich Science Festival >>>(link)<<< the response has been overwhelming and we are really proud of what we managed to achieve. -
Demonstrate your work
To simulate the electrical input that would come from a renewable source of energy. A battery was used to pass a set current through our electrochemical cell. Electrons from this battery were fed into our transformed Shewanella strain and were used to produce hydrogen >>>>>(link to general project goal page or relevant slide)<<<. Hydrogen produced from the cell solution was extracted from the headspace and quantified by GC in comparison to wild type controls. From our results >>>(link to results)<<< we can see that our system is capable of converting electrical energy into chemical potential energy in the form of diatomic hydrogen fuel >>>(link to group 3 ‘Demonstrate your work’ justification page)<<<.